That Awful Sound
by vultures
Summary: Connor thought, at first, that the others were looking down on him.


Title: That Awful Sound

Fandom: Primeval

Characters: Connor, Ensemble.

Rating: T_, _for a little bit of violence.

Disclaimer: If I really owned Primeval, I wouldn't be writing fanfic. Title comes from My Baby Shot Me Down by Nancy Sinatra.

* * *

Connor thought, at first, that the others were looking down on him (and maybe they were a little bit, because he was a pretty crap shot to start off with and everyone knew it). Time and time again he'd be the only one left unarmed, forced to stand behind the others when things got too dangerous and only trusted, it seemed, to act as technical support. Which, of course, was what he'd initially insisted that he was, only as he grew more and more used to the idea of anomalies and creatures he started to wish that he'd get a fair share of the heroics as well. After all, if Abby could be trusted with a pistol because she'd used a tranquiliser gun at the zoo before, then surely half a lifetime of playing Resident Evil counted for something, too?

Which was why it was a struggle to keep his enthusiasm in check when Stephen approached him in the ARC facility one day and, with a long-suffering sigh, presented him with a _Glock 17. _The older man stood with him, explaining how to use and disassemble the handgun. He also jumped, but didn't look all that surprised, when Connor discovered what was possibly the gun's single fault before he could explain it. Which was quite understandable, really; the trigger had to be depressed for it to be disassembled. It wasn't Connor's fault that he was a little heavy handed and ended up shooting a hole in Lester's floor the first time he attempted to take the gun apart.

After that initial mishap, though, he caught on pretty quickly. After a bit of practice his aim wasn't half bad, and the others no longer surreptitiously stepped out of range when he held a weapon in his hands.

And wasn't it thrilling to go out to anomaly, and to have Nick or Stephen slide him a gun across the roof of the car? It was proper action hero material, and who could blame him for grinning inanely those first few times?

Of course, that was before he really started to think about what guns were designed for. Killing.

The first time he shot to kill he didn't even think about it. He and Abby were squashed into a corner with the sound of the future predator's movements on the machinery above them. As he knew that it would, it didn't take the creature long to pick up on their location and then it was swinging down towards them, all sinewy muscle and deadly claws. The gun was in his hand before he had time to think, and he'd emptied the chamber into it before he'd even realised what he was doing. Abby hugged him as the thing lay dying, paralysed or too weak to move, and he stared at it in shocked silence. He didn't sleep well that night.

But Connor was good at coping with things. He'd accepted the existence of anomalies fairly quickly just as easily as he'd taken the news that real life dinosaurs were running around, and it hadn't taken him long to work out where everything was in Abby's flat when he first moved in. Using a gun, like everything else, simply became something new to get used to.

So did killing.

First it was the future predator and then at Lester's orders, as the anomalies became both more dangerous and frequent, it was anything that couldn't be easily controlled. It was nearly a year later, when facts about the anomalies were gradually leaking out and the ARC team found themselves opposed by more than just creatures, that he shot his first person.

In Connor's defence, the man had been aiming an assault rifle at Nick at the time. Claudia was trying to reason with him, her panicked words all running into each other and jumbling together in Connor's ears as he realised that he still had his gun and the others hadn't noticed. Claudia's reasoning didn't seem to be working, and all it had earned her was the rifle pointed in her direction rather than Nick's.

The man in black clicked off the safety.

Connor pulled the trigger.

A _bang _and then silence.

Claudia composed herself first, opening eyes that she had closed in anticipation of the shot only to see her would-be assailant on the ground. Connor's hands on the gun faltered and he dropped it, the sound of it hitting the ground seeming to waken the others from their stupor. Claudia turned around with a wan smile.

"Thanks."

He nodded wordlessly, Stephen carefully removing the rifle from the downed man's grasp, just in case. Nick placed a hand on Claudia's arm, which she brushed off with a smile, and turned to look at Connor. His expression was relieved but inexplicably sad and Connor swallowed hard and looked down at the gun at his feet.

For the first time it occurred to him that they hadn't been looking down on him. They'd been trying to protect him.


End file.
